To the north, the remaining raiders watched us as we regrouped. They had started to attack from behind, but the Shale line had broken so suddenly that they had pulled back.
“Where are the others?” said the teenager, whose face was streaked with blood. “The ones in white.”
I turned and squinted back to where they had been, but there was no sign of them. They had gone.
“There!” said the last of our blue-caped spearmen.
Out of the thin and blowing mist, the Empire troops appeared, right alongside their brother raiders only a few hundred yards away. We had kept the red force from joining with the black, but this was just as bad.
Orgos and Duke Raymon had brought their two companies together and marched them towards the center of the plain, where we might keep a block between the raiders and the rest of the Shale force. We set the wagon trundling towards them and the brief security they offered.
“Will,” called Lisha, “over here.”
I walked across, glad to leave the frightened soldiers to their own thoughts. A handful of women had spilled out of the citadel and one of them began to wail high and long. I saw her bent over one of the bodies, her face twisted and disfigured with grief and her cry floating through the air. I looked away quickly and tried to shut the sound out, but another voice began, joining her in abrasive harmony. The soldiers couldn’t bear it. A ripple of unease was coursing up and down their ranks, a ripple you could see. I turned my back on the mourning women, slowly walking to where Lisha stood in front of the Greycoast infantry lines with the duke and the rest of the party.
“Now what do we do?” Garnet asked wearily.
“We weaken them some more,” said Lisha. “Mithos, the Verneytha cavalry are fast. Can you get them close enough to throw their javelins?”
Mithos shook his head. “Only if you can keep Shale’s archers focused elsewhere.”
“We need a diversion,” said Lisha.
Orgos nodded. “You’ll get it,” he said.
SCENE LVIII Casualties
The green-caped cavalry wheeled off to the south as our infantry advanced slowly on the long, solid line of black shields of the Shale army. I forced myself to concentrate on reloading the crossbows.
A moment later the unearthly silence was broken by a distant swish that lasted a second or more. I looked up to see the air dark with arrows and our infantry standing under them, their body-sized shields locking swiftly together across the front and over the top at Orgos’s order: a half-tortoise. I think they had waited until the first arrows were in flight before the formation shaped itself. The concave oblongs of timber, hide, and metal plates fitted together like the parts of a puzzle in a single movement that took less time to assemble than the arrows took to fall. I held my breath, heard the dull rattling stutter of the shafts striking home, and watched for holes appearing in the tortoise shell. Incredibly, I didn’t see a single man go down.
Almost simultaneously, the Verneytha cavalry attacked the southern tip of Shale’s infantry block. By the time the enemy saw them coming it looked like a full charge. Shale’s foot soldiers, now dismounted and standing four or five deep, raised their spears to meet an attack that never came. Instead, there was a long, pronounced volley of javelins, after which the horses wheeled away. In seconds the maneuver was over and our forces were returning to the center. Shale lost a couple of dozen men, maybe more. But we were out of hit-and-run tactics.
The change in the tide came sooner than any of us expected. The Shale infantry saddled up once more and advanced across the plain towards us. This new movement held our attention until we heard the familiar drumming of horses’ hooves to our rear. Turning, horror-struck, we found the raiders passing at speed between us and the citadel.
“Raise your shields,” bellowed Orgos. It was too late. The arrows came pelting like heavy rain as the horsemen veered west towards the Shale line.
I think it was the randomness that was so appalling. In an instant our scenes of victory were bleeding and crying out around us. An infantryman in the front line called out for a surgeon over and over. Closer to me, a soldier screamed as his friend lowered him to the ground and tried to draw an arrow from his stomach. One of the village boys lay crumpled at my feet. I hadn’t seen him fall and figured he had just fainted. I tried to lift him and found the arrow in his side.
Orgos’s eyes flashed desperately about him and took in the damage. I watched the raiders ride away as they had done so many times before. As they crossed the plains, a shout of triumph rose up from the Shale force. We couldn’t even give chase. There was nothing we could do, and the red, white, and black united. Their lines swelled and pressed towards us.
I looked at Orgos, and his eyes were fixed on the approaching enemy, his nostrils flared and his lips parted slightly as his breathing came slow and even. For once there was no hope in his face. He looked too tired even for desperation. He felt my gaze upon him and turned towards me. As the enemy came at us, outnumbering us and bent on our utter demolition, I saw Orgos’s values crumble and his better motives crushed beneath the raiders’ brutal heel. It wasn’t defeat that he couldn’t stand, it was this heartless calculation, a calculation that had epitomized the raiders’ operations since before we had even arrived. What could you believe in after this? They came towards us, and all his principles, all his honor and hope for human nature evaporated before them, dispelled by their stronger magic of greed and callousness. In a moment, his spirit was broken.
“Pull back!” shouted Lisha suddenly. There was a flicker of life in our frozen forces, and Orgos became himself again, or seemed to, though there was a deliberation in the effort that was unconvincing. I have rarely had a stronger sense of a man acting to keep the show moving.
The Greycoast infantry began a swift march towards the citadel. The duke roared at Lisha, “What the devil do you think you’re doing?”
“Trying to save what’s left of your army,” she retorted, her anger suddenly apparent, “before it is destroyed.”
“You don’t have the authority. ” began Raymon, his face red and sweating.
Mithos appeared beside Lisha, his horse steaming. “Do
He had a point, and the duke could see it. The troops were breaking into a full retreat and their ranks were beginning to strain. In seconds the lines would disintegrate altogether and we would be looking at a rout.
“Make for the citadel!” shouted Mithos. They did not need to be told twice.
And finally it all made sense.
I realized why the raiders had brought us here and kept us alive over the weeks of our investigation. We were tools, pawns in Shale’s great chess game, and this was the moment we had been saved for. Under our auspices, the raiders had been tracked to this place. Here they had smashed the combined military strength of Greycoast and Verneytha. But there was more to it than that. They wanted the citadel.
Ironwall had been the first of the great fortresses in the area to be built, right after Vahlia had split into three territories. I had wondered why it had been built so far east, but now I knew why: It was out of range of Shale’s magically shifting raiders. The early rulers of Greycoast had built the citadel just far enough away from Adsine that their old enemy could not appear within their walls, but that had been long ago, and much had been forgotten since. We, the party and I, had been part of Shale’s larger plan to lure Ironwall’s defenders out onto the plains where they could hit us hard and then chase us back inside. We couldn’t get that portcullis down in time to stop them, and then they’d have it all.
“Get inside and lower the portcullis,” I shouted. It was pointless, but we would make the enemy work for their prize.
What remained of our cavalry units arrived first, charging across the bridge and through the gatehouse. It was Garnet and Renthrette who appeared at the large square window in the central tower and who set the vast iron grate creaking its slow way down. But by the time I brought the wagon to the bridge, the portcullis was less than a quarter closed and barely seemed to be moving. Most of the infantry had already passed inside and were rushing up to the walls to hide or watch what happened next.
